Building in reliability [factory automation]
The prime strategic drivers of factory automation are increased productivity, greater visibility and enhanced control. Gilead Sciences, an international biopharmaceutical company, assures consistent product quality and maximises batch yields, by improving manufacturing process efficiency with reactive, real-time pH measurements using the Foxboro 871PH Series sensor. On the other hand, for the complex task of a litho plate packaging, Klikok-Woodman built a packaging machine around the Rockwell Automation Integrated Architecture concept using Allen-Bradley control systems. Its ControlLogix controller is fitted with a DeviceNet module which receives the size information of an arriving plate and then adjusts the production system to automatically cope with the arriving plate, elegantly solving the problem of dealing with varying product sizes.